Gottlieb Hering

Gottlieb Hering (2 June 1887-9 October 1945) was a Hauptsturmfuhrer of the SS during the Holocaust. He was the commandant of the Belzec extermination camp from August 1942 to June 1943, succeeding Christian Wirth.

Biography
Gottlieb Hering was born on 2 June 1887 in Leonberg, Baden-Wurttemberg, German Empire, and he served in the Imperial German Army during World War I. He was nicknamed a "Nazi-eater" while a Social Democratic Party of Germany member, being a hated enemy of the Nazis until his friend Christian Wirth was able to secure his entry into the Nazi Party in May 1933 to the chagrin of Hering's former enemies. During World War II, he was sent to the General Government region of Poland to work on the "euthanasia" program before serving as the commandant of the Belzec extermination camp after August 1942. Later, he took part in the liquidation of the Poniatowa concentration camp and was sent to Trieste, and on 9 October 1945 he committed suicide with a cyanide capsule in the waiting room of St. Catherine's Hospital in Stetten im Remstal before he could be captured and tried for war crimes.